How Garden Therapy Enhances Addiction Treatment

Successful addiction treatment requires a well-rounded approach that includes medical, therapeutic, and holistic therapies. Also, there are many lifestyle modifications you will learn during treatment to help you get and stay sober. Here at Diablo Valley, we offer all kinds of treatment options for our clients, including garden therapy which has been a wonderful tool for many of the people we have seen come through our doors!

About Garden Therapy for Addiction

You may be saying to yourself, how can garden therapy help me? Well, a lot of what we try to teach our clients who are in recovery is that you need to learn to focus on the present. By giving yourself tasks, projects, or engaging in hobbies to keep you occupied, you can keep your mind on what is going on in front of you, instead of letting it wander to using drugs or alcohol.

In treatment, you’ll find a variety of classes like drawing, painting, writing, listening to music, and even acting out scenarios. These are all meant to help you find new ways to occupy your time. You’ll also realize how freeing it is to focus on something you are doing with your hands and completely lose yourself in the moment. Before you know it, an hour can fly by and you won’t have thought about drugs, or something negative that happened in your past, or worried about the future. You’ll be more free and allow your body and mind to really relax.

Garden therapy falls under this same category. It allows you to completely focus on what you are doing, to have fun, and even get a little dirty in the process. You’ll learn about gardening and how it works, and also be able to see your own success as plants that you took care of continue to grow and flourish. You’ll find a sense of purpose in doing something that has meaning. Many people who have taken part of our garden therapy program actually end up gardening throughout their recovery as a way to maintain their sobriety.

In garden therapy, you’ll be among your peers learning about the plants you are working with. You’ll also be given the opportunity to plant things you may be able to eat. It brings about a sense of accomplishment each day. As addicts, often people feel less than accomplished and like they aren’t worth anything. This helps to prove the opposite is true, as you can see what you are able to create with your own two hands.

How Garden Therapy Fits Into the Big Picture

Of course, garden therapy alone isn’t enough to get you on the right track towards a healthy and sober lifestyle. During treatment, you’ll also take part in individual and group therapy, meetings with your doctor, various activities and classes intended to help you understand addiction and recovery, and much more. Working in our garden goes hand in hand with everything else to enhance your experience and also give you something to look forward to each day.

We understand that all of the information you learn while in treatment can be overwhelming. Classes like garden therapy, writing, and art are meant to offset that, giving you a chance to completely clear your mind of everything but the task at hand. You’ll find that when you leave treatment and continue with your recovery independently, these kinds of tasks can turn out to be life savers. For example, if you ever feel like using or drinking, you can distract yourself with some gardening instead. Being bored is one of the worst things for a recovering addict, because idle hands are no good! On the other hand, if your life is filled with hobbies and activities, you’ll be more likely to stay sober.

Garden therapy is an excellent addition to our program that we encourage all of our clients to take advantage of!

Ready for a change, but don't know where to start?

Call Diablo Valley today so that we can help you make the first step toward freedom from drugs and alcohol.